


Northern Winds Calling

by Hardy



Series: Till Dawn Brings Us Rest [1]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: Canon Compliant, Canon-Typical Violence, F/M, Mudpuppies, Sandor-centric, Single POV, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-08
Updated: 2019-05-20
Packaged: 2020-02-28 13:02:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 5,337
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18756964
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hardy/pseuds/Hardy
Summary: "'There are no knights in the Neck,' she explained, not realising that he was not confused by her customs, but by herself. She smirked. '...above the water, at least.' His reserve broke and a short, barking laugh slipped past his lips."During the Greyjoy Rebellion, a young Sandor saves Howland Reed from certain death. It isn't until eight years later that they meet again, as Robert's retinue is heading North, and this time the Lord of Greywater Watch is accompanied by his daughter Meera, who is intent on getting to know her father's savior better.They are not yet aware that this moment is a spark that will grow into a large fire, one that will melt even the hardest Northern ice.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [DeepFriedLionLizard (little_valkyrie)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/little_valkyrie/gifts).



> This is the result of years of sharing stories with my friend DeepFriedLionLizard revolving around the unlikely ship we created. I thought it was about time to share a little of that madness with the fandom as a whole. Enjoy. 
> 
> (Edited by the very same DeepFriendLionLizard, who graciously accepted to correct my very French mistakes.)

 

_Pyke, Iron Islands_

_289 after Aegon’s Conquest_

 

 

Sandor groaned as he pushed the soldier away from him, his sword slipping out of the soon dead man’s chest like a hot knife through butter. He could see him clutching his chest with his hands, trying to stop the blood from seeping through his fingers, to no avail. The ironborn stared at him, gasping like a fish out of water. 

Honor dictated he should give the man a clean death, but honor didn’t have its place on the battlefield. Sandor had learnt that six years prior as the Lannister forces swept over King’s Landing, sacking the city, raping its women, and killing its men and children. Blood, everywhere he looked. Screams ringing in his ears. Chaos, all around. And in the middle of it stood a squire of two and ten, untested in battle, shaking like a maid on her wedding night. He still remembered the face of the first man he killed, a gold cloak who had thought him a grown man and hesitated for a split second when he realised the giant in front of him was but a child. That split second had been enough for that child to run him through. He had gasped too.  
  
Now every face blended with the other. He didn’t count the men he had killed anymore. Sandor turned away from the ironborn at his feet and readied himself for another enemy to lunge at him. His face was hot under his helm, beads of sweat rolling down his forehead into his eyes stinging from the smoke. He was standing in the rubble caused by the destruction of one of the keep’s wall, in front of the hole through which he had seen the mad priest Thoros of Myr run head first with his flaming sword, soon followed by a man wearing a white surcoat with an embroidered bear and a multitude of others. He hoped they would soon take the castle. The ironborn were vicious, nothing like the gold cloaks and tired soldiers he had had to face in King’s Landing.  
  
His eyes fell on a nearby squire struggling with an ironborn raider, his spear looking ridiculously small next to the man’s sword. The squire’s round leather shield lay next to him, abandoned. Another ironborn noticed them and approached the squire with a dagger raised over his head. He didn't make a sound when Sandor’s sword cut into his waist and sent him flying to the ground, almost sliced in two.  
  
Sandor heard a cry then, as the squire managed to overpower his opponent and thrust a small dagger in his neck with all his might. Blood burst out of him like a fountain when the boy pulled his weapon out of his neck and pushed him away from him with both hands. The raider fell to the ground with a thud, and the squire turned towards Sandor, sensing his presence.  
  
His shirt of bronze scales, though dusty from the battlefield, gleamed in the sunlight as he quickly moved out of his reach, looking at his surcoat with a wary look in his eyes. Then he bent down and retrieved his shield and his spear, of the likes Sandor had never seen before. It had three prongs, like a small trident, and he noticed that they were not made of steel, but of bronze, like his shirt. His surcoat, splattered with blood, depicted a lion lizard on grey-green; a sigil that Sandor was not familiar with.

Sandor was about to turn away when he saw a Stark soldier burst through the gaping hole in the castle walls.  
  
“The castle is taken! The ironborn have surrendered!”

A warhorn sounded in the distance, followed by others. Sandor looked around him and saw the sea of ironborn corpses they had left behind in the rubble. His ears were ringing with the victorious cries of his fellow soldiers and he felt his hands start to shake. Next to him, the squire took off his rusted iron greathelm and took a deep breath. As Sandor turned to look at him, he realised that the man was no squire and was in fact, about ten years older than him. His surprise must have shown on his face, for the man smiled. “Not all men can be giants like you.” He held out his arm to him, and Sandor took off his own helm before he clasped the man’s arm in a warrior’s greeting.

“I’m Howland Reed, of the Neck.”

“Sandor Clegane. Westerman.”

The crannogman frowned at the mention of his name and released his grip on his arm. Sandor steeled himself for the inevitable mention of his brother.

“Clegane?” he asked. “I’ve heard of your brother.”

“Who hasn’t?” Sandor replied dryly.

The man eyed him carefully for a few seconds, before wiping his brow.

 “Well. Thank you for your help. I owe you my life. I did not hear that man come up behind me.” He shook his head. “Yet they call _us_ crannogmen sneaky.”

 Sandor stared at the man in silence, unsure as to what to say. The crannogman stared back at him with his unsettling green eyes, seemingly unimpressed with his height or his gruesome scars.

 “I’ll put in a good word to your liege lord. He might even give you a knighthood, who knows. I know you Southerners do love a “Ser” before your name.”

“I don’t want to be a knight.”

“Why is that?” the man asked, more curious than appalled by his rebuff.

“My brother’s a knight.” Sandor replied in a gruff voice before he turned on his heels and started to make his way to the castle, his sword still in hand. He could still feel the man’s eyes on his back as he went through the hole in the wall and disappeared in the shadows.


	2. Chapter 2

 

_ On the King’s Road, The Neck, North _ _  
_ _ 298 after Aegon’s Conquest _

 

Wherever Sandor set his gaze, there was only green. Murky water, half-drowned trees covered in fungus, dense foliage; all of it green. Even the air seemed saturated with the colour.

They had only been riding through the Neck for about a week and half now, but he already had enough of Joffrey’s moaning about the smell -- not unlike rotten eggs -- of the surrounding bogs and the gnats that would harass them as they rode. He had suggested that Joffrey ride with his mother and siblings in the royal wheelhouse behind them, but the boy had scoffed and shrugged off his idea, muttering that he was not a woman or a child. Sandor chose to grit his teeth and stare at the backs of the Kingsguard knights preceding them in an attempt to ignore the boy’s rambling. Stranger felt skittish under him, pulling on the reins and jumping at the slightest sound, and Sandor assumed that he felt more than he saw the lizard-lions that they had spied earlier, their enormous trunk-like bodies barely visible at the surface of the muddy water. He wondered if they sometimes wandered onto the causeway... and hoped he wouldn’t find out. 

This morning, he had overheard a scout tell the King that they would reach Moat Cailin before nightfall, and felt slightly relieved at the thought of sleeping surrounded by walls -- although in ruin -- rather than by the untamed swamps. He was eager to see the stronghold that had protected the North from southron invasions for thousands of years, if only so he could see something other than  _ green _ .

He spotted one of the towers of the Moat before the others did; tall and slender, it appeared briefly in the breaks of the foliage above their heads, a ghost of civilisations past. Joffrey snorted when Sandor pointed it out to him.    
  
“It’s just a tower. Looks like a gust of wind could make it tumble down, besides. This ruin cannot be Moat Cailin.”

But Sandor had the right of it, for the trees soon gave way to the bare swamps, with only a few slender trunks fighting for survival in the mud, and in the middle, a mound on which stood three ruined towers amidst great blocks of what looked like black stone. As they came closer, he noticed the running grey direwolf on an ice-white field of House Stark flapping in the wind, and under it a smaller sigil bearing the black lizard-lion on grey-green that he had come to learn was House Reed’s. 

They rode under what appeared to be the remnants of an ancient gate, the walls around having crumbled into the mud, leaving only an arch of black basalt, and past a tower leaning at such an angle that it looked like it might collapse at any moment. The foreriders suddenly stopped, bringing the whole retinue down to a halt. From atop his courser, Sandor saw a group of men leave the largest of the three remaining towers and make their way towards them. They were armored and armed, most of them wielding three-pronged spears and bows, but didn’t seem hostile; and he recognised Howland Reed at their head. Robert seemed to recognise him too, for he laughed and dismounted, tossing the reins to his squire. 

“If it isn’t the Lord of Greywater Watch himself. What takes you away from your moving castle?”

Howland bowed, and the rest of his little group hesitantly followed, busy as they were staring at the King’s retinue. From where Sandor was, he could barely hear the crannogman’s soft voice over the wind and snorting horses. 

“Well met, Your Grace. I wanted to welcome you to Moat Cailin and the North. You still have quite a long journey ahead of you if you are going to Winterfell.”

“We are indeed. You will forgive me if we didn’t send word that we were coming. Ravens cannot reach that bloody castle of yours.”

Howland Reed smiled.  


“We have ways of knowing.” He replied enigmatically, before stepping aside and motioning for a small boy to come forward. “Let me present you my daughter and heir, Meera.” he said, and his smile faded ever so slightly when he looked back at Robert. It was however overshadowed by his daughter’s as she bowed and looked up at the king, and it was clear that she was no boy at all; although she was wearing breeches and a shirt of bronze scales like the rest of her father’s men and carrying the same weapons as them, there was a softness to her round face, framed by errant brown curls, that her father didn’t have. 

As Robert talked to the Lord of Greywater Watch, Sandor noticed that the young woman was busy scanning the crowd, as though looking for a familiar face. When her eyes fell on him, they widened ever so slightly in fear; or so he first thought. She flashed him a shy smile before lowering her eyes and turning to talk to one of her companions. Puzzled, he frowned and shifted in his saddle. Had he met her before? He was sure he hadn’t; after all, she mustn’t have been more than eight years old at the time of the Greyjoy’s Rebellion, judging from how young the woman seemed. 

Robert patted Howland Reed’s back, almost sending the small man toppling forward, and called for servants to set up camp, pulling Sandor from his thoughts. He glanced at Joffrey, who looked as though he had swallowed a dozen lemons as he looked around at the dreary towers and partially ruined walls covered in moss. They dismounted and Joffrey headed straight towards the wheelhouse, leaving his squire to take care of his tired palfrey. Sandor led his own horse towards the nearest tower, out of the way of the servants who were running around with furniture and crates of food. 

A strange kind of white moss was growing on the wall of the tower, like  ropey garlands cascading down the stone, glistening with moisture. He leaned forward to get a better look, and was rewarded with a whiff of the plant’s smell, heady and sweet. Stranger snorted next to him, and pulled on the reins slightly. 

“Careful, now. Ghostskin’s toxic.”

He turned around and had to look down to see the face of the person who had just spoken. Meera Reed was looking up at him, a soft, cheeky smile on her lips, seemingly oblivious to his ruined face.

“I wasn’t going to eat it,” he replied gruffly, raising an eyebrow at her. He pointed to Stranger. “Although he might.”

“Southron men are foolish, how was I to know otherwise?” She put both hands on her hips.  _ Narrow like a boy’s. She’s small like one too.  _ Yet he could tell that she, like her father, was older than she looked. “You might not be as foolish as some, though,” she continued. “My father told me you saved his life, during the siege of Pyke.”

“Aye, I did.” There was no point in acting humble; he had done what a soldier would do for another fellow soldier. She didn’t seem put off by his curt reply, on the contrary, her smile widened and she took a step forward. 

“How? He never told me.”

Sandor snorted. “Nothing daring or spectacular,” he said, knowing that, as a lady, she had probably heard countless stories and tales embellishing the war. “I saw a man ready to stab him in the back, so I cut him down.”

He expected to scare her with that statement but she merely nodded with a thoughtful look on her face before crossing her arms over her chest, making the bronze scales glint like a winter sun piercing through the clouds.

“Are you a knight?” she asked, raising an eyebrow.

“I’d sooner eat some of that moss over there than be a knight,” he shot back, and was surprised by her stifled giggle. “What?” he almost barked at her, and she raised her hands in mock surrender, her green eyes gleaming with laughter. They were much warmer than Cersei’s and Joffrey’s, he noticed, bordering on golden brown near the iris, more akin to soft moss than cold emerald.

“I didn’t expect you to react so vehemently to my question. I thought every Southron man dreamt of becoming a knight.”

He frowned at her, disconcerted by her attitude. 

“There are no knights in the Neck,” she explained, not realising that he was not confused by her customs, but by herself. She smirked. “...above the water, at least.”

His reserve broke and a short, barking laugh slipped past his lips. She responded in kind, pleased with his reaction, and he noticed that the rumors spread by some Lannister men at arms were unfounded. Her teeth weren’t green and crooked, but white and straight, with oddly sharp canines. She seemed to notice him staring because she pressed her full lips together, and he would have thought that he had offended her had he not noticed the slight blush on her freckled cheeks and on the tips of her pierced ears. She opened her mouth to say something but was interrupted by a young man limping over and calling her name.

“Meera! Your father is calling for you. The King wishes to have dinner with the two of you.”

She glanced at the young man, who was now staring boldly at Sandor, before looking back at him.

“I mustn’t make the King wait. It was… nice to meet you, Sandor.”

Sandor bowed his head and stared back at the man who was standing next to her, his hand on her shoulder, almost glaring at him.  _ Barely more than a pup, and he thinks he has fangs.  _ Meera shrugged off his hand and turned around to make her way towards the royal wheelhouse, the halo of brown curls around her head bouncing with each step. She looked back at him and smiled before disappearing in the crowd, and he shook his head when he realised that he was still trying to follow her with his eyes.

_ She gave you her attention for a few minutes. Get a hold of yourself, dog.  _ He turned towards Stranger and pulled him away from the wall. There was a tree growing from the northern side of the tower, almost horizontally away from the wall, with plenty of low, sturdy branches to tie Stranger to. 

 

Night was starting to fall when he went in search of food and wine, having brushed, fed, and watered his horse. Fires had been lit all over the moat, and Baratheon and Lannister men-at-arms alike sat around them, eating and drinking and singing. He found himself a wine skin filled with Dornish red and a bowl of rich beef stew to enjoy as well as a half-buried block of black basalt to lean against, not far from one of the fires. A group of crannogmen huddled around it, their armour reflecting the firelight. They were talking loudly, laughing as they ate and drank, and he saw one of them retrieve what looked like a turtle shell from one of their packs, as well as a string instrument made from the same object. The others cheered and got up to dance as two men started playing the odd instruments, filling the air with sounds he had never heard before. 

The dances were different from any other dance he had ever witnessed, from the magnificent ballroom in King’s Landing to the dirtiest tavern in Lannisport. The beating of the drums seemed to echo within his bones as he watched them clap their hands and twirl and beat the ground with their boots, while a young man -- who he realised afterwards was the man he’d seen with Meera Reed -- was singing in an unknown language. The rhythm grew quicker and quicker, attracting the attention of loitering soldiers and servants, and he saw crannogmen stop dancing and stepping away from the fire, one at a time, and start clapping as only Meera Reed remained.   
  
She moved with unearthly grace and agility; undulating and twisting and twirling; moving faster and faster until suddenly, when the drums could not get any louder, she fully bent over, lifted her left leg straight over her head, and twisted her body around in a full flip before slamming her leg back down on the ground. She straightened with her back curved like a bow and her arms triumphically raised in the air. The other crannogmen let out a loud, raucous cry at that display of acrobatics and Meera Reed laughed, reached for a wine skin, and pushed her hair back with one hand, her brown curls shimmering like burnt gold in the firelight. 

He looked down. His stew had grown cold. 


	3. Chapter 3

Sandor grunted as he threw the empty wineskin on the ground, next to where he was sitting. It had been a waste of Dornish red, the usually strong, sour wine watered down until it barely tasted of anything. _Even if I drank ten of those, I would still walk straight._

A slender foot, wearing leather boots, came into view and nudged the wineskin.

“Not to your taste?”

He looked up and saw Meera Reed staring at him for the second time in the day.

“You like to sneak up on me?” He countered, straightening up.

“I’m a crannogman. Sneaking up on people is in my blood,” she replied, cocking her head to the side with a mischievous smile. She held up a large bottle made of green glass. “I brought something better than your Southern swill.”

Behind her, her companions were trying to act disinterested in their conversation  _ **—**_ some of them clearly failing  _ **—**_ and that, coupled with the fact that she was standing here, offering to share a drink with him, made him frown.

“Aye? Why would you share if it’s so good?”

She crossed her arms over her chest, the bottle she was holding clinking against her armour.

“It’s because it’s so good that I am sharing. Besides,” she sat on the ground in front of him, carefully folding her legs. “I would like to know my father’s saviour a little better.”

He rolled his eyes. “I told you already _ **—**_ ”

“He owes you his life,” she said with a serious look on his face where there was before a soft smile. “You could have chosen not to save him _ **—**_ after all, killing this man must have taken your focus away from any other enemy who might have been approaching  _ **—**_ but you didn’t. Why?”

He shrugged, hoping that alone would put the conversation to rest. Instead, she merely stared at him, her green eyes burning through him. He let out an angry sigh.

“The battle was ending. I saw an ironborn, I killed him. Just so happens he’d been about to stab your father. End of the story.”

“Or is it?” she countered enigmatically, her lips curling into a mischievous smile once again. He had never met anyone who could smile so easily, and with so much warmth; maybe because he had been tainted by the court life at King’s Landing, where everyone wore masks, from the lowest servant to the highest lord. She seemed… honest.

He realised when her smile faded that she had expected an answer, some sort of witty remark in response to hers, but he had let her down. She cleared her throat and handed him the bottle she was holding.

“Try it. You won’t be disappointed.”

He eyed the bottle suspiciously and she drew it back.

“Fine. I’ll go first,” she said, before taking a swig. She closed her eyes and grimaced, either at the taste or the likely burn in the throat, he could not tell. When she opened her eyes back up, she tried to chuckle but ended up coughing.

“Burns like dragonfire. But see? I’m not dropping dead.”

“You just might if you take another sip of that, girl,” he replied before snatching the bottle out of her hand and taking a swig.

She didn’t lie, it _did_ burn. It felt like he had swallowed a river of fire that descended in his throat and pooled at the pit of his stomach, leaving his insides tingling in its wake. The spiciness of the drink surprised him too; where he expected a bland, tasteless liquor, he was welcomed by a blend of unknown flavours. He felt a wave of warmth wash over him as he licked his lips and looked in Meera’s eyes.

“Not bad,” he said after clearing his throat. She rolled her eyes but there was a twinkle in them that made him want to move closer to her and her warmth, like a moth to a flame.

_She must have lied. There has to be something in that drink. I’m not myself._

Somewhere behind Meera, the conversations between her companions had stilled, reduced to whispers and curious looks. A few men seemed irritated, while others were openly smirking at him. He glared at them.

“You know, you don’t look Southern.”

He turned his attention back to the young woman, who was studying his face.

“Your hair… your nose… your brow… Your eyes.” He shied away from her inspection, frowning. She leaned closer. “If I didn’t know better, I would think you had the blood of the First Men in you. Has no one ever told you this?”

“Most only ever notice the one thing,” he said, turning his head ever so slightly so she was facing his scars. She didn’t flinch, and merely studied them with interest. Then, ever so slowly, she lifted her hand towards him.

“May I _ **—**_ ”

He moved away from her reach and grabbed her hand, squeezing her small, delicate fingers in a bruising grip. “The fuck do you think you’re doing?”

He heard the hiss of metal against leather and looked behind her. A few of her men had unsheathed their bronze daggers and were ready to lunge at him. She turned to look at them and uttered a few words in a language he didn’t know and they stopped in their tracks, although more than unwillingly.

The warmth had left his body entirely, and the pool of fire at the bottom of his stomach had turned to unyielding ice. Meera Reed looked at him with sadness  _ **—**_ and... was it pity?  _ **—**_ in her eyes, and wiggled her fingers slowly in his grasp.

“You could have just said no, you know.”

He released her hand and glared at her. She stared back at him, unafraid. They sized each other up for what seemed like an eternity, silence growing thick between them. She was unbearably calm, like a rider attempting to soothe an unbroken yearling. He hated it.

Eventually, she sighed and glanced away, but didn’t leave his side. Instead, she sighed, reached out slowly to take her bottle back, and took a sip of the burning liquid.

They ended up looking at the fire together, watching as the embers rose and danced in the dark of the night.

When the first rays of the morning sun caressed his face, she was gone.


	4. Chapter 4

 

_ The Quiet Isle, The Riverlands _

_ 300 after Aegon’s Conquest _

 

The Stranger had no face.   
  
Sandor squinted at the wooden statue, trying to make out any feature on the smooth oval that served as its face, but could see nothing in the flickering light of the candles. He remembered that the Stranger’s statue in the Great Sept of Baelor was carved out of black marble, and wore a veil over its face. The stonework had been exquisite, the figure almost lifelike. One was left to wonder who hid beneath the stony veil.   
  
In the sept of the Quiet Isle, however, the Stranger did not hide. He showed to every faithful who he was: no one. Every one.

He shifted on the bench and stretched his leg, wincing at the dull pain that still echoed through his body every time he used it. But it was nothing. He had feared that he would lose it and become a cripple but the Elder Brother had worked wonders.  _ A better maester than any of those collared fucks.  _

The door at his back opened, and the sudden gust of wind that followed almost snuffed out the many candles at the feet of the Father, but the little flames rose back up and seemed to burn brighter when the man closed the door. Sandor knew who it was.   
  
“I never thought I would find you here,” the man said.

Sandor snorted. “Enjoy the sight, old man, for it is the first and last time.”

The Elder Brother sighed and sat down next to him.

“One can only hope. Hope is, after all, the essence of life.” He paused, as though waiting for Sandor to scoff at him. When he said nothing, the Elder Brother spoke up again. “Who are you praying to?”

“Not praying. Thinking.”

“Ah,” the man said, with no judgement in his voice. He laced his fingers together in his lap and fell silent.   
  
Sandor felt the heavy weight of the seven statues’s eyes on him, as though they were made of flesh and bones and blood, same as him. He had long stared at the Maiden’s eyes, trying to decide if the flaky paint used to colour them was blue or green. He couldn’t tell. Now they seemed to burn through him.  _ You failed her. You failed them.  _ He shook his head and the Elder Brother looked at him questioningly, the bench creaking under his shifting weight.

“Quit staring at me. I haven’t grown any prettier since you found me under that tree.”

“You have. I mistook you for a corpse, back then, until I heard you curse loud enough to rouse every demon in the Seven Hells.”

“Maybe you should have left me to die.”

“It was not for me to decide whether you should live or die.”

Sandor rolled his eyes. “As you have said many times, old man.”

“Because it’s true.” The man turned towards him. “I did what I could, and the Gods let you live. I know you do not believe in them,” he added with a soft smile on his lips. “But I do. And that is why I helped. Whether you think it was fate… or chance… it does not matter. What matters is that you live. What will you do with this life of yours?”

Sandor looked down at his hands. Callused from handling a sword for most of his life. Callused from digging graves since he was born anew. He closed his hands, folding his fingers gently, feeling the leathery pull of his skin, and he swore he felt a hidden softness there. A feather touch. A warm breath. Memories etched in the lines of his palms.  

“...I must go North. First, the Eyrie. Then, Winterfell.”

“Why the Eyrie?”

“I’ve got a hunch.” He glanced at the Elder Brother. “That dumb cow is chasing a mummer’s shadow. She thinks that Sansa Stark is with me, and that I was in Saltpans. She doesn’t know that I had the little sister instead, and that I never set foot in this cursed town.” He looked back at the wooden statues. “The little bird cannot possibly have made it out of King’s Landing without help. She’s many things, but she’s not a little weasel like her sister. No, someone helped her fly the coop. Another bird, I suspect. A bloody mockingbird.  _ Littlefinger. _ ” He chuckled darkly. “That son of a bitch slavered all over her like she was a piece of meat. Boasted that he had had the mother and the aunt, and that he would have the daughter…” Littlefinger had always underestimated him. He would talk carelessly in his presence, as though he was no different to a faded tapestry hanging on the wall or a chamberpot pushed carelessly under the bed. But he had ears, and he listened. “Lysa Tully rules over the Vale. What better place for a bird than a high nest? Where her last remaining family is…”

“So you think that this... Littlefinger brought the girl to the Eyrie. For her claim.”

“That’s one way of phrasing it,” he said through gritted teeth. The thought of Littlefinger’s manicured hands on the little bird’s skin made bile well up in his throat. “He’s biding his time. Waiting for the tide to turn. I’m counting on it.”

He stood up. The Elder Brother closed his eyes for a second, as though for a quick prayer, before he got up from the bench. “How can you be so sure?”

“Gut feeling. Never been wrong about those. And even if I were…” He pulled his hood up, bracing himself for the cold that had settled over the island recently. “I need to start somewhere. Can’t very well stay here; not now that I know this woman is looking for her too.”

“She seemed to have good intentions.”

Sandor laughed. “And I’m the High Septon. Did you see the pommel of her sword? Because I did.” He spat and turned to glare at the Elder Brother. “A Lannister lion head made of Lannister gold. I wouldn’t trust her as far as I could piss.”

He walked to the door and was greeted by a gust of freezing Northern wind as he stepped outside. The Elder Brother followed suit, rubbing his hands together for warmth, and bumped into Sandor, who had stopped in his tracks and was looking up at the empty, white sky. 

“What is it?”

“Smell that?”

Sandor heard the Elder Brother sniff a few times. “I don’t smell anything.”

“Smells like snow.”

And just as his words left his mouth, he felt a pinprick of soft, cold wetness on his cheek, then another on his nose. The Elder Brother looked at his hand, then up at the sky. A brother walking past with a wheelbarrow full of hay stopped in what used to be a puddle of soft mud that was now dry, frozen dirt, hard and unforgiving as stone. Sandor exhaled slowly, and watched as a puff of moist air left his mouth. 

“Looks like winter is coming.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The end (for now). I hope you enjoyed reading about this somewhat unusual ship.


End file.
